


Tokens of Affection

by Meiwks



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, merry new years tj, sorry i lied to u, tags r dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meiwks/pseuds/Meiwks
Summary: Grant and Nick go to the arcade on a totally-not-date. They're both gay, and both oblivious. Gaming ensues.
Relationships: Nicolas Close & Grant Wilson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: Secret Sons Fanfic Exchange





	Tokens of Affection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blu3boi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blu3boi/gifts).



> This fic is part of that wacky gift exchange thingy, and here I'd like to apologize to Tj for the fact that I straight up lied to your face about who I was writing for. But, I hope u like it Teej!! It was a fun prompt!!

_Life goes by slowly, for Grant Wilson. Or, maybe slow is the wrong way to put it. Things go by quickly- but it feels like nothing changes. He spent his days in a repetitive cycle. Lay in bed, eat, go to church on sundays, force himself to school on the weekdays he could manage, and build up all those emotions he can’t seem to let out. He plays video games that barely make him happy anymore, drinks shitty energy drinks, smiles to tell his dad he’s okay.. And that was every day of his life. On some days, Terry jr will come over- check in, and help him cleanup the train wreck his room had become. The cans and clothes and food everywhere. He would come in and check on Grant, ask how he was doing- and depending on the day, Grant would say his truth, or avoid the question. If Terry noticed that part, at least he didn’t point it out._

_Every day blurs together, and he still feels like that stupid 12 year old who would info dump Five Nights at Freddy’s lore to strangers on the internet._

_But Grant was 15 now, and things still weren’t going great for him. Especially at the sheer embarrassment of his recent crush on the dumb, wreckless, annoying little gremlin of their friend group._

Speaking of Nick Close, Grant paused his current videogame at the sudden sound of a notification coming from his phone- giving one of those stupid nose exhales as he checked the message.

—New Message From: Edgelord!———————

Hey Wilson, meet me @ the mall in an hour @ the food court. B there or b square nerdbrainz!!!!  
_________________________________________

Smiling at the stupid, stupid message, Grant considered briefly thinking of excuses not to go, or to at least question what the fuck they would be doing- before remembering Nick’s terrible habit of showing up at peoples houses uninvited. _Yeah, Grant would much rather at least make himself look somewhat decent before this punk idiot was knocking at his door._ He also remembered the last few times Nick pulled this shit, he refused to tell him what the fuck they’d be doing. So… to the mall he went!

After brushing his teeth and trying to deal with the frizzy mess that was his hair, Grant threw on some dumb graphic tee, a hoodie, his stim bracelets, and a pair of sweatpants before he headed out.

In retrospect, he probably should’ve grabbed something to eat first but he was already late… he didn’t want to push it. Besides, they were meeting at a food court. No doubt Nick had probably already tore his way through 4-5 taco bell tacos like the black hole of a human being he was.

When he arrived, Nick was waiting at a table on his phone, sipping a soft drink. Surprisingly, no tray of food. huh.

“Grant! Dude what took you so long, I was late and still got here before you. ” A not at all subtle laughter filled the room- snorts, along with a toothy, braces covered smile. A contagious one, nevertheless- the type that had no right being was cute as it was. 

“Hey dude- I’ve been home. Doin,, doin nerd shit.” He shrugged back, a faint smile threatening to show on his lips.

“Mm. That’s pretty poggers, but like.. this is the ultimate nerd shit. Check this out-“ Nick laughed, whipping out a jingling bag and shaking it a little bit.

_“Are those..”_

“Mhm. Tokens. From the arcade. You won’t believe this shit- my dad got like, blasted off his ass, and ended up there- so he bought a bunch of them but didn’t use em, and accidentally just,,, stole em? So like. I say we go in and buy some to avoid being sussed, and then blast all these babies into the machines. You down??”

“Dude. These will take like, forever to get through just the two of us-“ Grant insisted, starting to laugh.

“Oh- yeah, I totally get that.. but I was thinking like- if you wanted to, we could come back another day. I um. I like spending time with you. It feels like we never hang out one on one…?” Nicks face started to go a soft red- Grant’s quickly mirroring it. 

“Um. But if you want me to invite Tj-“

“No-!” Grant interrupted quickly, before clearing his throat.

“I mean. No- no that’s. That’s cool. Just the two of us.” He said in an attempt at casual, despite his pitch raising drastically. 

“Then, Cool. Cool! Cool. That’s chill, then- let’s head inside dude. Then later if you’re hungry we can like… come back and get some food?” Nick laughed, stuffing the stolen _(?? Are they considered stolen? They were paid for right??)_ tokens into his pocket before grabbing onto the sleeve of Grant’s hoodie to drag him towards the arcade. It was small, the type of place a lot of people didn’t even know was in the mall… but it was a nice place to go with your friends if you found it.

The inside of the arcade was.. overwhelming, as arcades often were. A mix of incredibly active noises from the machines, mixed from the lack of noise from anybody being here. There were multicoloured lights and the weird, 90’s pattern on the carpeted ground- as well as a little area by the prize counter on the side to go buy snacks, tokens and exchange tickets. 

“Alright- I’m gonna go get us some tokens, you can wait here real quick, hot stuff.” He laughed with a wink.

Grant just rolled his eyes. “Yeah alright, weirdo. Go get our shit-“ he laughed, giving Nick a soft shove as he stumbled over the counter and slammed down a bill.

Nick was a weird type of friend to have for Grant. I mean, he was a GOOD friend- but, still weird. He had the tendency to jokingly flirt with his friends- which was fine, it was funny- but Grant was also a gay teenage boy with a crush. So, having this punk gremlin winking at him and calling him pretty 90% of the time was… not great for that.

Not that he didn’t enjoy the compliments- he did. That was the problem. Because before, Grant could just shove him and toss things back at him. Easy. But right now, his face was slowly heating up as he was trying to decide if Nick would read into it if he tried to compliment him back. _God, why was life so hard?_

Returning with a small paper cup of tokens, Nick just seemed to grin at him and offer it to the other.

“Alright dude, where to first? DDR will make me a sweaty bitch, but I thought ahead and I’m not binding if we wanna get to it eventually. I’m thinkin…. Maybe we fuck around with some pacman, make our way up to some street fighter, see how we’re feelin then?” 

“Um- yeah dude. Sounds good- I do wanna do some pinball too, if that’s cool.”

Nick just scoffed in an exaggerated sense.

“Who the fuck actually knows how to play pinball? You just press the thingies randomly until you get a buncha points, you nerd.”

“That- that’s just dumb and you know it, gremlin man. There’s a huge culture around pinball y’know.” Grant rolled his eyes.

“I bet I can beat your score with random pressing things.” Nick leaned in challengingly.

“You absolutely can not.” 

“Bet???” Nick just laughed, and- being set on this entirely, pulled Grant over to the pinball machines. Standing in front of a Tales From the Crypt themed machine as Grant went to a classic Swords of Fury.

“Winner buys the losers lunch, hotshot- And I’m hungry as fuck.” Nick stated proudly- radiating way too much confidence for someone who just said his plan was to press things without thought.

“Nick, you really wanna do this…?” Grant just laughed, knowing he kicked ASS at pinball.

“Of course, dude- bad life decisions is my middle name.” He winked- putting a token in the machine.

And things were off.

The actual game wasn’t that eventful- Grant focused in and instantly started getting a bunch of points. Nick was,,, surprisingly good, which happened to be a common theme with the boy. Nick was like, frustratingly good at stuff he never seemed to try at. He just.. Excelled at it. It was never important things like schoolwork or cooking- only the dumb shit, but Still. Obnoxious. He also had no acne despite practically bathing in grease- which was unrelated but still annoying of him. 

Still, luck runs out- and when it became clear Nick was losing, he averted his strategy to trying to reach his short little leg over to try and trip Grant.

It almost immediately backfired, since he was no longer focusing on his ball- and he couldn’t reach anyways. So… lose lose.

“Dudddeeeee” Nick whined, as his game ended, immediately coming over to Grant and holding onto his arm.

“This is, pure luck. That’s all I’m sayin. The system is rigged. You’re the man and I’m fighting against you.” He insisted- though, it was clear from the smile on his face that he was fucking around.

Grant immediately started to falter as he felt the sudden weight on his arm and the eyes watching him play however- only managing for another minute before losing the game. And, looking over at Nick, he turned a bright red when he realized that he wasn’t watching the game- but that he had been watching Grant’s face as he played- looking a bit surprised and embarrassed at getting caught, before he quickly gained back his confidence.

“U-um-”

“Damn dude. You’re all cute when you focus. And your eyelashes are long as shit, did you know that?” Nick hummed like it was nothing- seemingly satisfied with himself as Grant quickly turned away. The only thing hinting at any sort of lasting embarrassment was a gentle blush on Nick's face.

“U-um we can- so we can go- what was,,, what was the thing you wanted to do…?” Grant quickly shifted topics, cringing at the way his voice raised in pitch.

“Mm.. Street Fighter, Pacman, whatever the fuck, and then we can dance our fuckin asses off.” Nick just hummed happily, as if he didn’t make Grant into a human heater with one sentence.

“A-Alright..!! Let- lets go, then!” Grant insisted, and they headed off.

Eventually, Grant calmed down- at least for a while.. And, him and Nick got to playing the other various games around the place.

_Nick was usually a flirt- but god, this felt like a lot more than usual- and there was a tiny part of Grant anxious that maybe, underneath it all, this was all a prank. That Nick found out about his crush, and decided he was going to fuck with him for fun._

Grant did his best to shake the thought. _Nick wasn’t like that._

They spent a fair amount of time at each place- and, as was decided, they eventually ended up at Dance Dance Revolution as a finale.

Nick's face instantly lit up at the game, hopping over to the first player spot as he looked over at Grant.

“Oh dude. I m going to fucking destroy you.” he gloated proudly.

“Yeah right- with those lungs? Nick, you wheeze going up a flight of stairs” Grant teased back.

“Okay sure, but you forget the fact that I would rather have an asthma attack than lose at DDR.” Nick shot back.

_“Nick please don’t make yourself have an asthma att-”_

“Anyways, those sound like fighting words, Wilson. You wanna bet on it…?” 

“Again…? I’m down, but please don’t offer me more of your money, you’re the one without a job-”

“First of all, selling weed is a job. Secondly, nah. I,, I have something else in mind. You gotta find out if I win though, alright?” Nick added, blushing softly for.. Some weird reason.

“Mm.. That sounds sketchy as fuck dude.” But, Grant couldn’t help but be curious at what this thing was… so he just sighed. “But fine. You’re on.”

“Fuck yeah.”

And so once again, the competition started- Nick looking oddly determined in this one.

“Three rounds, duh. Easy, medium and hard. Distractions totally allowed.” Nick laid out the rules. Doing rock paper scissors for song choice, Nick won- song choices going Nick-Grant-Nick.

The first round was pretty even- a good warm up for them both. But the second was where things got more intense. Grant chose a dumb weeb song of course- and probably the only one he had ever practiced. Grant didn’t really like playing DDR alone- it was… embarrassing. Still, this one he did when nobody else was in the arcade for a solid while in early middle school. Embarrassing, but fun. Shit, he even knew all the lyrics. Not what they meant, but what they sounded like at least. Round 2 was pretty similar, aside from some random comments- and Grant took the lead. Then, round 3.

They started even again- this time the distractions rule starting to show it’s head as Nick reached out blindly to push Grant. Feeling the hand on him however, he just grabbed onto it and tried pulling- eventually having them both stumble. Tumbling into Grant, Nick tried to kick out one of grants legs- leading to them both tumbling in the process. Laughing loudly, Grant was no longer playing the game- grabbing onto Nick's leg as he tried to crawl back.

Seeing that he wouldn’t be able to stand up, Nick decided to innovate- before starting to pound on the panels with his hands. He couldn’t see the screen, but he played the game enough to vaguely know.

“No!” Grant laughed out, attempting to drag him back and pin him down on the machine- still, it was too late. The song ended, and Nick had clearly won.

Still, the two boys were just giggling, Nick laying back on the metal with Grant over him, arms on either side of his head. It was the kind of laugh that hurt your stomach, eventually inaudible because you were out of breath.

As Grant looked down at the adorable boy giggling under him, he just smiled for a second- before their position dawned on him, leading him to quickly sit up with a red face.

_“Sorry!!” Grant squeaked-_

_“shit dude I’m CRYING-”_ Nick just cackled eventually pushing himself up as he tried to calm down- looking at Grant's red face and eventually coming down from it.

Standing up, Grant held out his hand- the smile not leaving his face.

“Shit dude- good game-” Nick just laughed more, though softer, as he took Grant's hand and stood up.

“Mhm. You win though- so what’s this weird mystery thing I gotta do, huh..?” he asked, watching as Nick's huge grin faded a bit as he blushed again.

“O-oh, right! Right- um-” Nick cleared his throat, glancing back over at the game as he caught his breath.

Leaning back against the bar of the game, the boy nervously looked at his shoes as he started to stutter out what he wanted to say.

“U-um, so I was wondering- I know it was a bet, but obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to, um- but, I think you’re really cool, and hanging out like this was like, hella fun, so I- if you want to, I was wondering- uh-”

“Nick..?” Grant spoke softly, trying to read whatever, this was on his face. Why he was this, flustered.

“So I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go on like… a date with me sometime..? Um- sorry if this is weird, I just- nothing too fancy, just-”

Nick looked up from his shoes to scan Grant’s face for his reaction- only picking up,, shock.

“W-wait, me…? Why- is this. Are you deadass…?” Grant squeaked, face heating up further.

“Jesus Grant-” Nick gave a soft, awkward laugh. “Yes, I’m fucking deadass- I’m into you. It doesn’t take a fuckin, genius to see I’ve been flirting with you for fuckin months-”

“What??? I thought- you flirt with everyone?? You called Terry babe yesterday-”

“It was in a joking way!!! I flirt with other people way less than you, and it’s shit like ‘babyboy’ not fucking how pretty I think they are- Babe is a part of my vocabulary!! I thought that was obvious!” Nick called out, voice cracking as he spoke.

“No!!! I didn’t get it!!! But I’ve had a crush on you for like a while now so you should’ve just asked way earlier????”

“You WHAT????”

“I BLUSH EVERY TIME YOU SPEAK TO ME-”

“Shit dude, how are we so fucking dumb-” the laughter started up again.

“Mm- No fucking clue dude.” Grant replied, joining in on the laughs.

Fac buried in his hands with an embarrassed smile, Nick reminded,

“You still haven’t said yes, geek.”

“Oh shit- um. Yes.” Grant assured with a grin.

Taking his face out of his hands, Nick approached him and softly took his hand, Nick quickly started to drag Grant out of the arcade- much more flustered looking as he did so.

_“Good. Now let’s go get some Taco Bell, nerd.”_

**Author's Note:**

> if u read this ur gay lol


End file.
